


Counterparts

by MiriFern (orphan_account)



Series: Jeffrey Dahmer In the Twilight Zone [4]
Category: Dahmer (2002), Jeffrey Dahmer - Fandom, My Friend Dahmer (2017), Twilight Zone
Genre: Again, Based on a Dream, Basically I split Jeff into two different people, But this time it's natural rather than supernatural, I apologize ahead of time if nothing makes sense, I seriously set out to create the wildest story possible, I spent way too much time on this, Multi, actually more of a nightmare really, so you're in for one hell of a ride, well sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MiriFern
Summary: Every newspaper and talk show in the world is obsessed with him. The man in the mugshot stares out with dead eyes. He is Dahmer, the last of the American serial killers, and his horrific crimes will be remembered forever.Few know that Dahmer has a twin. His brother is perhaps everything he could have been - an upstanding citizen with a clean record, a reserved hardworker, and a gentle family man. But the public eye can't spot the difference between their identical faces.So begins a nightmare of persecution and paranoia, the true nature of which is visible only through the all-seeing lens of the Twilight Zone.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"  
> ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

_Bath, Ohio_

_1974_

A boy named Mark McGill had sped past him on his roller skates as Jeff was walking home one afternoon. Spotting the ominous black trash bag hanging from his hand, Mark circled around, almost wiping out against a parked car.

“What’s in the bag, Jeff?” he asked. Of course he knew his name—everyone knew everyone in a small town like theirs.

Jeff was fourteen, a year younger than Mark. His posture was awkward and gawky. Hesitating, he held the trash bag out so Mark could see the contents.

The scent of blood and decay hit him first, making him jerk back. “Ugh! What is _that_?”

“Roadkill,” Jeff answered.

“What are you carrying it around for?” Mark asked, tottering about haphazardly on his wheels.

“I’m cleaning up the neighborhood.”

The corners of Mark's mouth turned up slightly. He had blue eyes, and the wholesome good looks of an all-American boy-next-door, but something about the way the tufts of light brown hair at the nape of his neck curled outward gave him a mischievous aura.

“C’mon—what’s it really for?”

Jeff squinted, the afternoon sunlight reflecting off his glasses, and reluctantly admitted, “I put the animals in acid until all their skin and muscle dissolves. Then I study the bones.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It interests me. You can sell the bones to this company that puts them in museums and schools and stuff, too.”

“Where do you keep them?”

Jeff gestured vaguely toward the woods. “There’s a hut behind my house.” Shyly, he added, “You wanna see it?”

Mark had nothing better to do. Jeff led him to the _hut_ , where there were shelves of jarred, acidified, and preserved animals. Mark made a bad joke about “pickled possum” while Jeff shoved the fresh roadkill into a jar.

“Is that a dog?” Mark asked, examining a skeleton he had meticulously reconstructed.

“Yeah. A beagle.”

“I used to have a beagle," Mark murmured. "His name was Champ. He ran away.”

“Um—the dog was already dead when I found it.”

“It got hit by a car, didn’t it?”

“I think so. I don’t really remember.”

“Champ’s the second dog to die on us,” Mark added. He had taken off his skates in order to climb down the hill, and was standing around in only his white socks. “My dad ran Mom’s old poodle over when he was pulling out of the driveway, so we got Champ after they divorced."

Jeff cast him an odd glance. "Did they get divorced because of that?" he asked tentatively.

"Nah, they divorced because my mother’s crazy and my dad doesn’t have the patience. It probably didn't help, though. Now my dad lives in Cleveland. My stepdad’s a cool guy. I just wish they didn’t argue so much, and over the stupidest stuff...”

Jeff nodded somberly. His own parents fought all the time, and he was beginning to hope that they would be getting a divorce soon, if only to stop the constant yelling and screaming.

“So Jeff, do you want to become a veterinarian or something?”

“Um, I dunno. Maybe, I guess," Jeff replied hastily. Glancing back at the beagle skeleton, he quietly asked, “Do you want it?”

“You mean for keeps?”

“It might be your dog. If you wanted to bury it or something, I wouldn’t mind…”

“Do you really think it’s my dog, though?”

Jeff shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like I said, I don’t remember where I found it, just that it was a… a beagle.” His voice grew softer as he spoke, fading into silence. He wondered if Mark noticed the way he shrank from him, never making eye contact.

“Okay,” Mark agreed. “But I should go home and put my skates away first.”

Jeff didn’t dare offer to carry it to his house himself. “Okay.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Catch you on the flip side!”

Mark ran out, scrambling back up the hill, the dirty bottoms of his white socks moving in and out of sight with each step. Jeff wondered how they hadn’t torn already.

Farther down the road and from the opposite direction, Jeff’s brother Jake came slogging, a black trash bag hanging from his hand. It was heavier than Jeff’s had been.

Mark spotted him and came to a sudden halt, stunned. Once he remembered that Jeff had an identical twin, he waved to Jake before heading home.

Back in the hut, Jeff looked around at the jars of half-melted meat. There was a still-fresh squirrel floating in brine peering down at him with lifeless eyes. He turned the jar around so it was no longer facing him.

Hearing footsteps, he turned to the door just in time to see Jake throw it open.

Jake was a hulking giant compared to Jeff, who was small for his age and still had considerable baby fat. Otherwise, there was little way to tell them apart. They had the same blonde hair, bespectacled blue eyes, and round, boyish faces with dimpled chins.

"Hey Jake," Jeff greeted.

At first Jake ignored him. After putting on a pair of rubber gloves, he overturned the trash bag. Out tumbled the mangled corpse of a cat. Jeff winced as it thumped cruelly against the table.

“Did Mark McGill come around here?” Jake asked, shoving the cat into a large glass jar. The fur, wet with blood, squished loudly as it slid through the lid.

“Um, well—”

“You let him in here, didn’t you?”

Jeff swallowed the lump in his throat. “He’s coming back to take the beagle. I told him he could have it.”

Jake’s annoyance faded for a moment, replaced by confusion. “Why would he want a dead dog?”

"He said it might've been his dog that ran away," Jeff babbled, shrinking from his brother’s shadow. “His other dog got run over and—”

Jake grabbed a bottle of acid and slammed it against the table. “You should have chased him away as soon as he showed up. Now people are going to start thinking we're freaks."

“Don’t they already think that?” Jeff muttered.

"Do you want it to get worse?" Jake snapped, his eyes flashing. "People don’t give each other skeletons as gifts, Jeff!"

Jeff’s face flushed. “I was trying to be nice.”

"You're such an idiot," Jake muttered, losing steam. He turned back to his new jar and began carefully pouring in the acid.

Jeff’s fingers curled and uncurled at his sides. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

Jake ignored him. The slopping of liquid was amplified inside the jar as he poured in the acid, and the foul combination of chemicals and rotting flesh began to permeate the air.

A few moments later, the door opened again.

“Hey Jeff—” Mark began, faltering when Jake shot a stern, almost hateful glare at him. “I, uh, my mother was throwing a fit because of my socks. So I had to stay and listen to her lecture."

“It’s okay,” Jeff mumbled.

Mark coughed and covered his nose against the fumes from the open jar. Realizing his window of opportunity was shrinking, Jeff reached for the beagle, which was glued down to a thin wooden board. As he turned to give it to Mark, there was a loud crash as one of the jars fell to the floor and shattered.

Mark yelped and jumped back, afraid it would splatter. Jeff stood frozen, unable to cross the putrid puddle of acid and mortified flesh at his feet. He could feel Jake’s glare, black and smoldering, burning holes into his skull. His brother had deliberately flung the jar in his way.

Slowly, Mark crept around the ruddy slush, took the board from him, mumbled something like a "thank you", and left.

Jake crouched beside the broken jar and picked at the remains it had contained. The bones were intact amid the slime. Collecting a few, he looked up at Jeff.

"Aren't you going to clean up the mess you made?"


	2. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - July 22, 1991 (Part 1)

Jeff awoke to find his heart pounding in his chest. The feeling of fear didn’t leave him even as he took deep, slow breaths to calm his nerves. It was like being a newly-caged bird—no, that wasn’t it. It was like being a wily rat who had caught their leg in the cinch of a mousetrap. He was doomed, and he would have preferred a quick death to what awaited him, so he was frantically trying to bite off the leg holding him back from oblivion…

Rubbing his eyes, he stood up, shuffled in and out of the bathroom, then glanced at the clock. He was running late. Since he worked the graveyard shift, his sleep schedule was erratic; he must have forgotten to set the alarm.

Scrambling to get dressed, he tried to remember what exactly his dream had been about. Paranoia, fear and guilt had played out in a private drama with no audience but himself. The scene was hazy, he didn’t know any of the characters, and all the dialogue was unintelligible.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling it had something to do with Jake.

He glanced at the phone, contemplating trying to call his brother. It was late, very late, but Jake was even more of a night owl than he was, so he would likely be awake and at home even at this hour. Assuming he wasn’t out drinking and cruising, as was his habit.

Three years ago, when Jake had been arrested for drugging and fondling a thirteen year old boy, Jeff had nightmares for weeks. He couldn’t explain why or even what the dreams were about, just that they were dominated by feelings that overwhelmed and terrorized him. Impotent rage. Dry-mouthed fear and anxiety. Buckling, begrudging guilt.

It was the guilt that finally began to convince him that he and Jake might have some connection beyond what was typically possible between humans.

When they were small, the go-between of their emotions was a constant flow of feeling, like baby-talk in a language only the twins knew. Jeff didn’t remember much from those early years, except that being with his twin brother had been comforting, and they were rarely apart. All that changed when he was four years old. Jeff had needed a double-hernia operation, but Jake acted as if he were the one who’d undergone the painful procedure. Either way, things were never the same between them.

Jeff hurried down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible, wincing at every creaking floorboard as he made his way into the kitchen. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t his footsteps making the noise behind him.

He whirled around, only to breathe a sigh of relief. “What are you doing up?”

Five year old Luke looked back at him with drowsy eyes. “I want some water,” he said, pointing upwards.

Jeff opened one of the overhead kitchen cabinets and pulled out a glass. While he was filling it up in the sink, Luke said, “I think I had a bad dream. It had a monster in it.”

“A monster?”

Luke clutched the glass of water with both hands. “A big monster under my bed took my blanket because Gwen didn’t tuck it in.”

“I thought you didn’t like being tucked in.”

“I like it better when you tuck me in.”

The corners of Jeff’s mouth twitched. “I’m running late, you know.”

“Please?”

Without speaking, Jeff nudged the boy back into the hallway and up the stairs.

“And make sure to leave the door open just a little,” Luke added.

“Okay.”

“And leave the light on in the bathroom.”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Okay, Luke.”

He followed Luke into his bedroom. It looked like the room of a boy older than five, painted dark blue and stuffed with action figures, comic books, band posters—but mostly, it was a dumping ground for records and cassette tapes which lay stacked in boxes or lined up in rows on wooden shelves.

Jeff winced as he stepped on hard plastic. Lifting his foot, he beheld a sleepy Yoda smiling enigmatically, no doubt confident in the fact he was made of solid child-proof resin.

“Hasn’t your mother told you to clean up after yourself?” he said, stooping to pick up Yoda and standing him on one of the shelves.

Luke’s reply was strangely serious. “She’s not my real mother.”

Jeff sighed and sat on the edge of Luke’s bed. “I know.” He hesitated. “Think of it this way. If I wasn’t your real father, would you still call me ‘Dad’?”

“But you _are_ my real dad.”

“Right,” Jeff answered a little too quickly. “But the point is, no matter who you came from, the people who take care of you and love you are your real parents. Gwen loves you very much, even if she doesn’t always remember to tuck you in.”

A frown creased Luke’s brow. He couldn’t remember much about his real mother, who had died in a car accident when he was only a baby.

“Can I see Mommy’s picture?” he asked.

Jeff studied him for a few moments, wondering briefly if this was an excuse to make him stay a little while longer. Then he left the bedroom, returning a minute later with a framed photograph of a teenage girl.

Taking the frame in his small hands, Luke settled down underneath his blankets. A whitish line cut through the middle where the picture had been folded in half, bisecting the wilting weed-flowers she clutched in her hand, but his mother was still smiling across time, her long dark hair lifted by a breeze.

Jeff gently slid the photo from his limp grasp as Luke closed his eyes. He looked more like his mother than his father.

***

The next morning, Jeff came home from work and crashed. He didn’t sleep for more than a few hours before he was shaken awake.

It was Tuesday in summer, so Luke wasn’t in school. He came into the bedroom, his cassette player hooked to his belt, and started nudging Jeff. “Dad, Gwen is on the phone and she says she needs to talk to you.”

“Don’t make yourself deaf,” Jeff muttered, half awake. He could hear Genesis’ “That’s All” blaring loud and clear from Luke’s headphones. His words might as well have fallen on already-deaf ears—the kid lived and breathed music.

Jeff took the phone Luke handed him. “Hello?” he answered dully, rubbing his eyes.

“Jeff?”

“Hey, you woke me up.”

“Oh, I know,” Gwen replied. “I shouldn’t even be on the phone right now. But this is important.”

Something about the tone of her voice put him on edge. “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. It’s just that, I caught a glimpse of the news on the office TV, and they’re talking about your brother.” She hesitated. “They said he killed some people.”

For several seconds, all Jeff was aware of was Luke’s subdued humming in the next room.

“…What?” he whispered.

“I don’t know much about it. He’s been arrested, and they think he was involved in some killings.”

“It’s Jake, right?”

“Oh, of course. David wouldn’t do a thing like this.”

“That explains it...”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. I’ve got to go. Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon.”

She didn’t have a chance to say goodbye before he hung up. He got out of bed, threw on his clothes, and left the room in a hurry. Luke detected the change in Jeff’s demeanor and followed him down the stairs.

In the living room, he turned on the TV. “Murder in Milwaukee” was the news headline, coupled with a mugshot of a blonde-haired man, about thirty years old, with a mustache, glasses, and a lackluster gaze. It was from his arrest three years ago—they couldn’t get a hold of anything more recent—but the resemblance to Jeff’s own face was no less obvious.

That leering mugshot threatened to burn itself into his retinas. Finally he tore his gaze away, intent on finding his keys, but he heard a portion of the report: “ _Police say the suspect, thirty one year old Jacob Dahmer, has confessed to the killing of eleven people, the remains of which were found in his apartment…_ ”

“Luke, get dressed. We’re going to Grandma’s house.”

***

His grandmother’s house seemed flat and muted, the colors washed out under an overcast sky. After getting Luke out of the backseat, they walked up to the porch.

Jeff was alarmed to find the front door unlocked. “Grandma?” he called, locking the door behind him.

“Who is it?”

He found her sitting in her favorite chair in the living room, watching television. When she saw him she raised a shaky hand, which he clasped immediately.

“Jake? What are you doing here?”

Jeff frowned. “Jeff, Grandma. I’m Jeff.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Jeff.” His grandmother patted his hand. “How’s Gwen?”

“She’s fine. I came to make sure you were all right.” He wet his lips. “Jake was arrested last night.”

She sighed. “So he’s gotten into trouble again. I hope it isn’t as bad as last time, with that poor boy…”

Luke shuffled into the living room and began cheerfully chattering away to Jeff grandmother, who for a moment didn’t seem to know who he was. Jeff felt a tightening in his chest. He hadn’t seen her in a while, and her fragile, confused state was jarring. If he had known her condition was so deteriorated, he would’ve come around to check on her more often.

Paranoia gripped him. The front door had been unlocked—what about the back door, the windows, the basement?

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said before leaving the room.

If his grandmother noticed him running around the house checking locks and latches, she didn’t say anything, except to ask if they were staying for lunch. He was halfway down the basement steps when he mumbled, “Uh, sure…”

He was nearly done checking the basement when he heard the doorbell ring.

“There’s a police car outside!” Luke exclaimed.

Jeff raced back up the steps, but she answered it before he could.

“Hello ma’m, I’m Detective Murphy. Are you Catherine Dahmer?...” Detective Murphy’s gaze darted over her shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Jeff stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh man, sorry.” The detective ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just that you look exactly like the guy we’ve got in custody.”

“They’re identical twins,” Jeff’s grandmother replied. “And yes, I am Catherine Dahmer. I understand my grandson has been arrested?”

Murphy coughed. “Would you mind if I had a look around and asked you a few questions?”

"Come on in, make yourself at home.” She stepped aside to let him through.

Perched on the couch by the front window, Luke watched the detective with rapt attention. After glancing around the room, Murphy turned to Jeff. “You got a basement?”

“Yeah."

Leaning forward, Murphy lowered his voice. “That’s where he said he took them. There’s a drain down there, so everything could just be hosed down, and there’d be no evidence.”

Jeff felt a chill on the back of his neck. His grandmother had already gone into the dining room, but Luke was staring at them.

“Don’t ask her anything about the murders. She doesn’t know what exactly happened. She wouldn’t understand.” Jeff nodded to Luke. “Don’t talk about this stuff around my son.”

Murphy nodded. “Of course. But she can still answer some questions, right? If she’s not all there, I don’t see any reason to bother you.”

“I don’t know how much help she’ll be, but you can try.”

Murphy joined Grandma in the dining room and sat across the table from her. Jeff sat on the couch next to Luke, looking for something to keep the kid occupied while he strained to listen to their conversation.

“Mrs. Dahmer, how long did your grandson live with you?”

“About six years. He was working at a clinic taking people’s blood. Then he got a new job at a chocolate factory, and decided it was time to move out on his own.”

“And while he was living here, did you notice anything unusual?”

“Well, he’d gotten into trouble before—”

“I’m aware of his previous arrests. What I meant was, did you ever notice any foul smells or strange substances while he was living here?”

“There was a foul odor in the basement. My daughter Eunice said something to him about it. He said it was the cat. Then his father, my son Lionel, asked him and he said it was from a dead raccoon he had been experimenting on, putting it in chemicals. He used to do things like that when he was young.”

“I see. And did he ever bring strangers home with him?”

“Oh, many times.” She hesitated. “He would bring these young men here and take them down into the basement and… well, you know what. Officer, what I’d like to know is what exactly did he do this time?”

“We, uh, think he might have been involved in a…” Murphy cleared his throat. “...a homicide. Right now we’re just gathering as much information as we can.”

Mrs. Dahmer fell silent for a time. “I suppose he could be involved in a murder,” she said softly. “You never know.”


	3. Bath, Ohio - 1976

_Bath, Ohio_

_1976_

They met Heidi Graves in late 1975, when Mark dragged Jeff to the junkyard just outside Akron. Actually, Jeff was the one dragging Mark, who rode behind him on his skates, clinging to a rope tied to Jeff’s bike.

Mark wanted to be a rock star; he was in a band with his cousins, played guitar, and that Christmas he’d gotten a book which listed every number one hit song since the forties. They each looked up their birthdays the way girls at school looked up their zodiac signs. Both had been born under Elvis songs.

But his chief hobby was hoarding old records, most of which he picked up from dumps and thrift stores. His go-to scavenging site was the Akron junkyard, where treasure abounded in the midst of the dying city.

“Homeless people hang around places like this, you know,” Jeff muttered. He took huge steps over piles of rust and debris, wondering how long it had been since he’d gotten tetanus shots.

“I feel sorry for them. It’s colder than a well-digger’s ass out here.” Mark crouched a few feet away, poking at shredded metal cans with a stick. “Nobody’s gonna come after us in broad daylight. Besides, I’ve got a knife on me.”

 _But I don’t,_ Jeff thought glumly. At least, not anymore. The various blades Jeff and Jake had used in their dissections had all been confiscated by their father, who had dismantled the “hut” shortly before Christmas. Their experiments had been going on for far too long, Dad insisted, and playing with dead animals wasn’t healthy. Jeff had been upset, but Jake had started beating the tree trunks with a stick, his fury so intense the stick splintered and snapped like broken bone.

Shaking the memory from his mind, Jeff fumbled through trash in search of vinyl. He didn’t know what Mark saw in this place. Most of the records they found were either smashed or too scratched to be played. When he finally did find one intact and still in its sleeve, it was almost always crap. A waste of time and effort. Then again, he liked to collect roadkill, dissolve it in acid and keep the bones, so who was he to judge a guy scouring a landfill for music?

Eventually, he found something that looked promising, and started back to where he’d last seen Mark. Finding the spot empty, he searched the area, then quickened his pace. He didn’t call out to him for fear that someone else would hear, so he looked frantically around the piles of junk, wondering where in the hell Mark had gone. There was no way he would’ve left Jeff behind. Would he?

There! Mark was standing over by a hollowed-out car. Jeff took a step toward him, but Mark didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Jeff whispered. “Why are you just standi—”

And then Jeff saw her. A girl about their age with long dark hair, she had been lying in the back of the gutted car, curled up on the stripped floor. At the sound of Jeff’s voice, she opened her eyes and sat up. “Who the hell are you?”

“Uh—my name’s Mark. Do you mind if I ask why you’re sleeping out here?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Because things at my house are fucked up, that’s why. What are you doing out here?”

“I’m looking for vinyls,” Mark answered brightly. “I collect them.”

Remembering the record he’d found, Jeff thrust it into Mark’s hands. The girl turned to him as if noticing him for the first time.

“Who’s this, your kid brother?”

“Nah, this is Jeff. He’s a friend, and he’s older than he looks.” Mark glanced briefly at the album cover, then back at her. His mannerisms had changed, growing shy and bashful. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“I hate my name, which is Heidi, so call me Di. Or don’t call me anything.” She climbed out of the broken window and started to walk away.

“Hey—” Mark yelped, following her. Jeff scrambled after him, wishing he would leave her alone.

He couldn’t remember what the conversation along the way had been, but at Mark’s insistence Heidi reluctantly accepted a ride on Jeff’s bike, awkwardly putting her arms around his waist for lack of anything else to hold onto. She didn’t want to go home, and there was nothing better to do, so all three of them wound up in Mark’s bedroom that afternoon, listening to the record Jeff found.

Heidi flopped on Mark’s neatly made-up bed, her long dark curls fanning out around her head and her feet dangling over the edge.

“So what’s so bad about your place that you can’t even sleep there?” Mark asked.

“Orgies.”

He and Jeff exchanged glances.

“I’m serious,” she snapped. “I’ve been couch-surfing for the last two years to get away from it. Anything is better than sleeping at my house.”

Mark shrugged. “Are your parents ex-hippies or something?”

She didn’t answer, but looked down at her lap in sullen silence, picking at a loose thread on her sweater sleeve. Her clothes were dirty and disheveled.

“Haven’t you got any relatives you could stay with?” Mark persisted.

“No. I’m an only child, my grandparents are all dead, and I don’t have any aunts or uncles.”

“Would you like to stay here?”

Jeff cast a sharp glance at Mark. He’d hardly taken his eyes off Heidi since he first saw her. Slowly but surely, she’d begun to return the favor, her big brown eyes shining and attentive whenever she looked at Mark. Jeff sensed what was happening between them, and it was beginning to annoy him. Made him sad too, though he didn’t understand why, except that he felt sort of broken and alone, the last kid at the fair abandoned on the carousel.

She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess… If you’ve got the space.”

“My sister left for college. You can have her room. I’m sure my folks won’t mind.”

***

Dad came home early one day not long after. Still wearing his coat, he walked down the hallway to their bedroom so quietly they hardly heard him.

It was too cold to go out, and neither of his friends were home. In his boredom Jeff had gotten wrangled into playing with David on the crowded floor of their shared bedroom. David had taken out his wooden Lincoln Logs. Dad arrived to find them arguing over the little pieces.

“I need them for my cabin!”

“How big does it have to be?”

“Bigger than your tower!”

“You don’t even have enough pieces in the set to make it that tall.” Jeff noticed their father standing in the doorway about halfway through his rebuttal, and turned to look. Dad was watching them in silence, a strange expression on his tired face.

“Hey Dad,” Jeff greeted.

“Hi Jeff.” His father’s reply was reticent. “Where’s Jake?”

“Um, he went for a walk.” In fact he’d gone into the woods, where their father couldn’t stop him from cutting open as much roadkill as he liked.

Dad raised his head ponderously, sighed and went to his office.

At dinner Jeff sensed him staring across the table. Finally, he met Dad’s eyes and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Dad quickly glanced down at his plate. “Your feet don’t touch the floor,” he murmured.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom cut in, eying her husband with suspicion. “So he’s a little on the shorter side, what does it matter?”

“Jake isn’t that short,” Dad pointed out.

“Just because they’re identical twins doesn’t mean they’re one and the same.” She turned to Jeff. “You were always smaller than Jake, even when you were a baby. The doctors said you didn’t get as much blood as him. It’s common that that happens with twins.”

Dad nudged his food across his plate with his fork. “I’m a little concerned, that’s all.”

“No, you just want him to be a little clone of you, that’s all!”

During the ensuing screaming match, Jeff pushed his chair back and looked down at his feet. He could touch his toes to the floor, but his heels still hovered above it.

“It’s true that you were smaller than Jake when you were a baby,” Dad muttered, returning to his seat to pick up his plate. He’d probably go into the den to eat his dinner with the door locked. “But you gained weight quickly and grew just as fast. This is different. I can see it in your face, too. Something isn’t right. I don’t know why I never noticed it before…”

Jeff looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror that night. Jake was taller, but even he had a boyish look. That was just the way his features were. Dad was making a big deal out of nothing.

There was a knock on the door. “Are you almost done?” Jake demanded.

Jeff opened the door and gradually caught Jake’s reflection as it appeared in the mirror. His hopes were crushed as he was forced to confront just how different they really were. The uncanny likeness was still there, but Jake’s shoulders were broader, his face had thinned out, and he looked and sounded like a typical teenager.

Back in their bedroom, Jeff snagged David’s new tape recorder. He hesitated, wondering how accurate it would be, then clicked it on and said the first words that came to mind.

“Do I sound like a kid? I don’t know what I sound like. I can’t tell the difference. Jake’s voice cracks sometimes, and it sounds deeper. Mine doesn’t.”

He stopped the recording and played it back. As soon as he heard himself, he winced.

A few days later, Dad drove him to a doctor in order to resolve the issue once and for all. Jeff, slouching glumly in the passenger seat, was too scared to say anything along the way.

While they were walking across the parking lot, Jeff’s bottled-up questions came tumbling out all at once. “What if they don’t find anything wrong with me? Or what if it’s cancer or something serious? What if there is something wrong, but they can’t figure out what it is?”

Dad shrugged. “We’ll see what the doctor says.”

The doctor was an older man with a trimmed gray beard. He introduced himself quickly and then asked, “How old are you?”

Alone and shivering in the chilly examination room, Jeff managed to mumble, “I’ll be sixteen in May.”

The doctor slid his chair closer and pulled the stethoscope off his neck. “You play any sports?”

“Um, I used to play tennis a little.”

“Huh. I used to be really into baseball when I was a kid, and right about fifteen is when I completely lost interest. Any pets?”

“Dog. Her name is Frisky.” He wondered if the doctor could hear his heart pounding through the stethoscope.

“You go outside with her often, run around and play?”

“Yeah. I don’t like to stay cooped up in the house all day.”

The doctor glanced at the clipboard the nurse had left behind. “Do you drink alcohol?”

“Um, sometimes…”

“Are you sexually active?”

“No,” Jeff mumbled, his face flushed.

“Cooties, right?” The doctor pressed his fingers against Jeff’s stomach. “Does it hurt when I do this?”

“No.”

Moving his hand to a different area, the doctor said, “Speak up, please.”

“No,” Jeff repeated, his voice reedy and hoarse.

“I’d rather not put you through a full physical. So, just answer this question. I know you have sex education classes at school, but they must’ve explained puberty. Have you had any of the changes they described?”

Jeff shook his head. His hands were trembling in his lap.

“There’s always a chance you’re a late bloomer, but as it is, there seems to be something else going on,” the doctor muttered. He picked up the clipboard. “We’ll have to do a blood test to make sure. You aren’t afraid of needles, are you?”

“No, no…” Jeff could feel the blood drain from his face, leaving him cold and white as a ghost.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” the doctor reassured him. “Whatever the problem is, we’ll take care of it. But there’s one more thing I have to ask. Were you planning on having children one day?”

The question seemed to come out of left field. “No, not really,” Jeff replied uncertainly.

“I’m asking because if it’s some kind of hormonal imbalance, which the blood test will tell us if it is, then the worst that could happen is you’ll wind up infertile. You either won’t produce enough sperm, or the sperm you do produce won’t be viable. Now, you’re just a kid yourself, so I didn’t think you’d be terribly concerned about that, but in the future it may become an issue. Anyway, let’s get that blood work done…”

***

“Almost a hundred dollars!” Mark exclaimed. He was gaping at the pharmaceutical receipt for Jeff’s new medication.

No sooner had Jeff snatched the paper from him, Mark picked up the medicine bottle and shook it, relishing the jangle of pills against glass. He was always doing stuff like that, making noise just for the sake of it. In junior high he was mocked for wearing corduroy pants because he liked the sound it made when he walked.

“What if you get huge and people start thinking you’re on steroids?” Mark asked, eyes wide.

“Technically those are steroids,” Heidi pointed out. She was sitting on the couch, looking much better than she had when they met. “And you’re not supposed to shake the pills.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale.” Mark gave the bottle one last shake before setting it down. “Y’know, Jeff, I always wondered why you still looked the same. We won’t be able to pretend we’re uncle and nephew anymore. Do you think you’ll get as big as Jake?”

“I dunno. They just said it would make me grow, not how much.”

“Man, I’d like to see that. Then you’d really give those assholes a run for their money.”

“Who are you talking about?” Heidi asked.

“These jocks who picked on Jeff here.” Mark started rifling through the Dahmers’ kitchen cabinets as if he were looking for food, but in reality it was just to keep his body moving.

“Big deal. Everybody either beats people up or gets beat up,” Heidi remarked.

“There’s more to it than that, baby.” Straining slightly, Mark reached further into the cabinet. “They hit him in the back of the head with something, knocked him flat on his face. Could’ve given him a concussion.”

She looked at Jeff. “Did you fight back?”

“No. I ran away.” Belatedly, he added, “It was three guys against one, and all of them were bigger than me. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“Well, maybe they’ll stop bothering you after you start taking the pills.”

Jeff fingered the medicine bottle, tracing the edges of the label. He couldn’t pronounce the name of the drug, and yet he was going to be imbibing it for the next several months, if not longer. But it was worth it if it would raise him up to the same level as everyone else, making him their equal.

“I wonder if it’ll be different compared to everybody else.”

“Well, puberty is a pretty wild experience anyway. You’ll get used to it, though. Might even like it. I can’t mention anything too specific in the presence of a lady.” Mark cast a pointed glance at Heidi, who rolled her eyes.

Not too long ago Jeff had watched Mark mutate into an awkward, gawky adolescent, greasy hair hiding a ruddy face ravaged by acne. He’d emerged more or less all right, but other kids had fared far worse. Jake still seemed uncomfortable in his own skin.

“You guys better not tell anybody about this,” Jeff muttered. “People will think it’s weird.”

“It _is_ pretty weird.”

“Yeah, but they’ll treat me like crap because of something I can’t control.”

“That’s life. Besides, who cares what they think?” Mark glanced at his watch. “Time flies when you’re having fun. I gotta go, or Dad’ll tan my hide.”

Heidi gave Jeff’s shoulders a squeeze. “Get well soon.”

But Jeff didn’t want them to leave. Once they were gone, he would be alone with the pills and the future ahead.

Already in the doorway, Mark glanced over his shoulder at Jeff. “Catch you on the flip side, man.”

Managing a faint smile, Jeff waved goodbye.

***

When they were younger, Jeff and Jake had slept together in the same bed, while David took one of their old cribs. After they moved to Bath, it had become a habit of Jake’s to sleep beside his twin. They were still children. It was innocent, like going to their parents’ bed for comfort. But their parents were too embroiled in their own problems to be a source of comfort. All they had was each other.

By the time they got through junior high it seemed to have stopped completely. But Jeff had caught him one night. At first he didn’t know what was happening, just that the sheets were moving. Then, he felt Jake’s hands, moving tentatively against his back.

“What are you doing?” Jeff demanded, tired and annoyed.

Jake froze, his entire body locking up. Jeff rolled over and realized his brother had been masturbating.

“Go back to your own bed if you’re gonna do that,” he hissed.

Jake slunk back to his bed and turned away from Jeff, who tried to go back to sleep but found that he couldn’t. In the morning, he pulled Jeff aside, whispering, “Forget it ever happened. It was an accident.”

So he gave his brother the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was tired, forgot where he was, didn’t realize what he was doing. He was all too willing to believe it was a simple mistake. But deep down he must have suspected, at the very least, that Jake’s only error had been in failing to wait until he was asleep.

David proved a complication. Jeff’s voice had woken him up, and he was the one who mentioned it to their mother, trying to describe things he was too young to understand.

“She said I saw no such thing,” David mumbled. “Then she told me to mind my own business and leave you alone.”

Jeff groaned. “Why did you have to tell her?”

“Because I thought he was doing something bad. It’s okay, right?”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“Then why won’t Mom do anything?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it okay when other people do it?”

Jeff grimaced. “Listen, Dave. If anyone ever does that to you, you come and tell me or somebody else other than Mom.”

David’s eyes widened. “Did it hurt?”

“No. It’s just… uncomfortable and gross. Siblings aren’t supposed to do that to each other.”

“Why did he do it?”

“Because… because it makes him feel better, I guess.”

“Will he do it to me, too?”

“I’ll make sure that he doesn’t. So don’t worry, okay? Everything is fine. It’s all taken care of. Just drop it.”


	4. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - July 23, 1991 (Part 2)

Jeff found a half-full carton of cigarettes in what had been Jake's room, the only trace he'd left behind. He stuffed it in his pocket, not intending anything in particular, but couldn't seem to help himself.

Gwen wasn't supposed to get out of work until five, but she left early and arrived at half past three to find him sitting on the porch step, reeking of smoke, crushed cigarette butts scattered across the lawn. Running out of cigs hadn't stopped him from pacing the yard—it was the two journalists who'd shown up thirty minutes ago and were now camped out across the street.

She sat down next to him. "Don't be so nervous."

"I have every reason to be nervous," he bit back, glaring at the reporters.

"It isn't gonna do any good," she murmured, touching his shoulder. He spared a glance her way—their way, since she was seven months pregnant now and he'd already begun to see double—and suddenly he felt far too exposed, sitting out there in the open where everyone could see them, hear them, maybe shoot them if they were feeling righteous and watched too much TV. Too much around-the-clock news...

He tugged her into the house, where the walls at least hid them, if not protected them.

_"This may be one of the worst mass murder cases in recent history..."_

Luke was lying on his stomach on the floor in the living room, bathed in the ever-changing light from the TV screen. He was flipping through some old picture book, humming to himself.

"Hi Luke," Gwen greeted. "Where's Grandma?"

"She's taking a nap," he answered. "I think she's sad about Uncle Jake going to jail."

Jeff studied the boy's face, wondering what to do, how to explain it all without scarring the kid for life.

Gwen, watching the TV with a morbid curiosity, asked, "What did Uncle Jake do to wind up in jail?"

Luke shrugged. "I think he killed people." He looked up, wrinkling his freckled nose. "What's a cannibalism?"

"That's when a person eats another person."

The five year old looked doubtful. "I don't think people would taste good. The news man said Uncle Jake was cannibalism... cannibalism-ing?"

"Cannibalizing," Gwen corrected him softly. Still watching TV, she didn't immediately notice Jeff abruptly leave the room.

"Cannibalizing," Luke echoed. "Sounds gross."

In the sudden silence afterward, she realized Jeff was gone. She peered down the hallway and saw light coming from the partially-closed bathroom.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Opening the door, she found him kneeling in front of the toilet, his face colorless and gray.

"Just when I stop throwing up, you start," she remarked, one eyebrow raised.

"It must've been the smokes," he replied weakly. "I'm not used to it anymore." He'd slowly but surely given up smoking for her sake; she was asthmatic.

He stole another glance at Gwen, traveling from her shoes to her stockings to her maternity dress and up to her pioneer woman face, with set jaw and upturned nose and dark eyes. She was glaring at him, though not out of anger so much as agitated concern.

"You still haven't come to terms with this, have you?" She put her hands on her hips. "You're trying to escape it by pretending it isn't happening. Well, it is happening, right here, right now."

“Oh here, oh now, oh hell,” he mumbled, feeling nauseous again.

"Sorry, but you're definitely awake. All you can do is get used to it."

***

Gwen sat on the edge of the bed, tugging on the scrunchie in her dishwater-blonde hair. Finally freeing it, she stretched the elastic and launched the scrunchie across the room. It hit the wall with a soft thump before falling to the floor.

She glanced at Jeff, who was standing by the window, still fully clothed. "Will you try to get some sleep?"

"I can't sleep," he replied without turning around. The mob of reporters was finally beginning to dissipate. For much of the evening, they had called the phone, rung the doorbell, banged on the door, trampled bushes and snapped photos. Jeff disconnected the phone, took down the chimes and thought about barricading the entrance, but Gwen insisted that was going too far.

All the while Jeff's grandmother had grown more and more confused. She couldn't understand why strangers were crowding her yard, and kept asking questions. Who are they, what do they want? No answer they gave her seemed satisfactory. Finally, she seemed to give up, retreating to her bedroom at the back of the house, where the sounds weren't so loud.

Night fell, and finally it was quiet. Luke was sleeping on a couch downstairs, while Jeff and Gwen had gone up to Jake's old room. He had slept in that bed where she was sitting now. And maybe, just maybe...

"He might have killed someone in this room, you know."

Gwen made a face. "Do you want to pull the sheets back and look for blood stains on the mattress, or can I just sleep here for one night?"

"You aren't taking this seriously enough," he muttered. "The police came earlier and wanted to search the house. It's only a matter of time before they do, and then they'll come to our place to ask questions, and the reporters will follow..."

Leaning back on her hands, Gwen studied him, her forehead wrinkling. "I can take the next couple of days off if you need someone around."

"Don't go risking your job on account of me. I'll be fine."

"Librarian pay isn't that good," she grumbled. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to be alone right now. If anything, maybe you should stay here with your family."

His father Lionel was certain to come tomorrow, if only for Grandma’s sake. Jeff shook his head. "They won't want me around."

"I doubt that very much. You haven’t seen your father since Thanksgiving. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you."

He closed the curtains. "No. I don’t think he’ll want to see me at all."

"Jeff—Look, I won't pretend to know what kind of existential crisis you're going through right now. But whatever's between you and your folks, you've got to let it go, if only until this whole thing blows over. They can't dismiss you just because you look like him."

He shook his head. He was finding it harder and harder to look at her. "It's never going to blow over."

"You know what I mean." She gestured at the lamp in the corner. "Could you turn that off?"

He switched off the light, and her silhouette settled down in the bed where Jake might have killed someone, lying on her side with one hand under the pillow and the other resting on her round stomach. For a moment he hesitated, then he kicked off his shoes and slid in next to her.

A few minutes later, lying in darkness, he turned his head and whispered, "Gwen?"

"Yeah?" She sounded wide awake.

"Should I be crying over this?"

"…Are you asking me if I expected you to cry?"

He didn’t reply. She adjusted her pillow, then said, "I remember you told me you didn't cry at Heidi's funeral. I thought that was odd, since you had Luke with her, but now I sort of understand."

"I was the only person at her funeral,” he murmured.

"What about your other friend, the musician?"

"Mark was busy. He didn't even know she was dead until it was too late."

"Give a man enough talent, and he'll take fans over friends any day.”

"Well, you've got to make something out of yourself, or no one will care about you. Jake never did, and neither did I."

"Don’t compare yourself to him now."

"Why not? I'm not perfect. I'm far from perfect."

There was a long pause before she whispered, "I'm sorry."

"That's the second time you've apologized to me today. It's not your fault."

"I'm still sorry. I don't know what else to say..."

She wriggled closer to him, until he could feel her arm on his chest and her stomach pressing against his side.

"I feel like I don't have any control over my life," he muttered. "It's all out of my hands now."

"I don't think so. But then I'm not the one with the serial killer twin." She snorted. "Sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel. Maybe he’ll find this whole media circus inspiring."

A kick in his side stopped him from laughing. He shivered, seized by fears he couldn't speak of.

"Hey, it's okay," she whispered, wrapping her other arm around him and pulling him into a comforting embrace. "It's all going to be okay..."

Some time later, the silence was shattered by a series of loud thumps or bangs against the other side of the house.

"What was that?" Gwen gasped, sitting up.

"It sounded like rocks," Jeff said, standing up. A stoning on private property. You'd think they'd want to wait until the cameras were rolling, capture the spectacle.

“Should we call the police?”

Jeff was already halfway to the door. He glanced back over his shoulder at her and heard another thump. “Yeah. But stay on this side of the house, okay? It might be something worse than rocks.”

He opened the bedroom door. His grandmother was standing at the other end of the hall, looking frightened.

“I heard noises. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. He gestured toward the guest room. “Why don’t you come in here and stay with Gwen? She’s calling the police.”

As soon as Grandma shuffled past him into the room, Jeff bounded down the stairs and went into the sitting room. At first glance, Luke seemed to be still asleep on the couch, but as Jeff approached the boy flung out his arms from underneath the blanket, whimpering.

Jeff came back upstairs, carrying Luke. He could hear Gwen on the phone. "...should have someone out here, a police car or something. She's an eighty year old woman living all alone... We don't live here, we came to help her, but there's only so much we can do!..."

Rather than going to the “safe” guest room, he turned into Grandma’s bedroom, which was on the side of the house where the noise had been loudest. Peeking through the window curtains, he looked down at flower beds trampled by reporters. Even from two stories up, he could see dents in the metal siding of the house, but more striking were the splatters of yolk smeared on the aluminum panels. The house had been egged.

Still holding the phone, Gwen looked up when he returned to the guest room.

"It was just eggs,” he announced, sitting on the edge of the bed and setting Luke down beside him. He felt drained.

Gwen kept looking at him, answering the operator’s questions mechanically. Luke clutched Jeff’s arm, wanting attention, and Grandma sat silently, lost in her own little world.

 _Fine,_ Jeff thought. _I have all the people I care about in the entire city of Milwaukee with me. No one can hurt me from here. Certainly not some stupid punks throwing eggs. Certainly not Jake, not while he’s in prison._

But he felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, and could have sworn he heard a voice say _liar._.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JD's grandmother's house was egged shortly after his arrest, but his father Lionel was the one who was there to see it happen. (A Father's Story)


	5. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - August 22, 1991

_August 22, 1991_

One month to the day Jake was arrested, Jeff lost his job at the chocolate factory. It didn’t surprise him. He hadn’t been showing up to work on time, provided he bothered to show up at all. They fired him and he walked out without another word.

Before he drove home, he stopped at a gas station and found himself craving the smokes again, so he went inside to buy some.

The cashier, a plain, out-of-shape young woman, was loudly chewing gum. She didn’t bother trying to make conversation, for which he was grateful. He only wished she would hurry.

She did look up when he handed her the money. Her fingers closed around the stack of bills, her eyes glancing over his face with the same dull glaze that she had given the cigarette brands, when a flash of recognition passed over her face.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” she asked.

Tearing his eyes from the magazine rack next to the register, Jeff looked away from her just as quickly, shaking his head.

“Like, on TV or something?” she persisted.

“You’re mistaken,” he mumbled. Grabbing the cigs, he turned to go, slowed to a stop, and then turned back.

The woman watched him, still trying to figure out who he was. He sensed her leaning over to peer around the shelves, sizing him up, and his skin crawled.

Returning to checkout a minute later, he slammed a box down in front of her, refusing to meet her stare.

She flattened her gum against the roof of her mouth. “Women’s hair dye?”

“Just ring me up,” he growled. Already he had a cigarette in his mouth and a lighter in his hand. Puffing deep, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’m not who you think I am.”

The woman shrugged, printed his receipt and reached out to give him a handful of coins.

“Keep the change,” he snapped, brazenly pushing her hand away. The coins fell from her fingers, rolling and spinning and clattering across the counter and onto the floor. Irritated, the woman stooped to pick them up, straightened and was about to give him a piece of her mind, but he was already gone, the door slamming in his wake.

***

The dye made his scalp itch. He washed his hair again, wondering whether it was worth the trouble.

He heard a noise outside the bedroom window and jumped up, rushing over to see what it was. Part of him was expecting it to be a thrown rock, or someone trying to break in. But a quick sweep of the ground below yielded no surprises. This was not the first time this month he had panicked at the slightest sound, always thinking back to that first night at his grandmother’s house.

Sighing, he went back into the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror, wondering what else he could change to make himself less recognizable. He ran a hand over his jaw, wondering if he should grow a beard, and his fingers lingered over a faint scar just below his chin. For a moment his mind flashed back to the sensation of sharp metal stabbing through the soft flesh above his throat...

Again he heard a noise, this time coming from the living room. He went there expecting God-knows-what, but all he saw was Luke sitting on the couch with his thumb in his mouth.

“I thought you cut that out when you were three,” Jeff remarked.

Sheepishly, Luke let his clenched fist drop to his lap. “You look different,” he mumbled.

“Just my hair,” Jeff replied. He returned to the bathroom for a third time, couldn’t remember why he was there and gave himself a shock when he looked in the mirror. The pale man who stared back at him with dark circles around his eyes and a dull, glassy-eyed stare looked like he was in the process of wasting away.

Well, now that he’d lost his job, he could start getting back on his feet health-wise. He could sleep again.

There was stubble on his face. Had he forgotten to shave that morning? Annoyed, he opened a drawer and took out his razor.

Those primitive dissections in the hut when they were kids—had that been the incubator for Jake’s bloodlust? Then why hadn’t Jeff turned out the same way? They were identical, after all—

Pain jolted him back to reality. He saw blood. Not much, only a little, trickling from his throat where the blade had gashed the skin.

He dropped the razor immediately and turned on the faucet (why wasn’t it already on?). Icy water numbed the sting as he splashed the wound.

It still stung. He waited for a few minutes for the pain to subside, and inevitably his mind started to wander again, always lingering on Jake. There was little in life they hadn’t shared, one way or another. And now, just when he was starting to make something of himself, just when it all seemed to be going his way—

Already he was thinking of escape. Of packing a bag, loading up the car, and driving nowhere, anywhere, so long as it was far away from here. If he changed his appearance enough, he would become unrecognizable, one more drop in the sea of anonymous faces drifting across America.

That was crazy talk, of course. He had his family to think about. His father was in town, caring for his sickly grandmother to distract from the more immediate issue dominating the airwaves. His mother was in California, and David was taking time off in order to visit her.

They were strong roots, but he had abandoned them once before, and he could do it again, _easy_.

The thought of leaving Luke, the same clinging, dependent infant he had carried home from the hospital after the accident, should have been appalling. And Gwen, reliable and too-trusting Gwen, who in another month was due to give birth to his child… Did all that really mean _nothing_ to him?

He didn’t want to know the answer. But he could choose to dig his heels in and stay, even if he felt more alone surrounded by people than he would if he was out there in the sun.

It was just the constant stream of strangers knocking on his door in search of a photo or a sound bite, the unending news coverage on TV, and the obnoxious girl at the gas station. That was what bothered him. If he thought about it anymore, he would lose himself. He and Jake would blur together and he would be history, a goner, a dead man walking. In fact, it was best if he didn’t think of anything at all.

Though he was standing upright, he almost started to nod off, exhausted and woozy. All he ever did now was sleep, and when he woke up he was tired. Grieving.

“Dad?”

He opened his eyes. In the mirror, he could see Luke standing in the doorway behind him. He hadn’t heard the kid walk down the hall, hadn’t sensed the change in the air as he approached. There was no hazy mental link tying them together the way he was chained to Jake. They weren’t even blood kin.

Luke… oh God, why did he have to look like them both? Those were Heidi’s dark curls and tiny nose, and those stormy blue eyes couldn’t have come from Jeff, even though everyone assumed they had.

There was Mark’s kilowatt smile flashing across Luke’s face. “Are you hiding in here?” he asked.

Jeff didn’t answer. Luke tilted his head, then nestled against his side like he used to do when he was a baby.

They’d spent the winter of 1988 in a one-room apartment with a broken heater. It got so cold at night you would dream you were somewhere warm, a southern beach in summer off the coast of Florida or Puerto Rico. He would wake up with a freezing jolt, finding Luke had crawled across the bed to his side, lured by body heat, and he’d nearly rolled over on top of him.

They never had a cradle or a crib for him. There was no room. Heidi used to put him in a dresser drawer, padded with blankets and pillow stuffing. When he got too big, she put him in the bed with her. Jeff was sleeping on a couch in the corner at that point, though sometimes he would catch a few hours of proper sleep in the bed, when she was out…

_Out, out, out._

He hadn’t slept this whole past month, not really. When he slept, he dreamed he was locked in a cell, awaiting trial, watching ants crawl across the floor and listening to the screams of the other prisoners. Jake was dying of boredom. When he could, he picked at Jeff’s scabs and taunted him with the secrets he knew.

_When are you going to tell the truth? Would you have kept it a secret forever if I had never been caught? You never were very good at lying._

“Never…”

“Never what?” Luke asked. It wouldn’t matter if he knew. But if anyone else caught a glimpse, that would be the end of everything.

Jeff wrapped his arms tight around him, his grip possessive. Other nightmares stalked his twilights.

***

When Gwen saw him her mouth fell open.

“What did you do to your hair?” she cried.

“I dyed it.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“I stopped at a gas station on the way back, and this woman—a complete stranger—recognized me. I figured this was the best disguise I could manage at the moment.”

“You bought hair dye at a gas station? Not a good idea.”

“I noticed,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

She tapped her lip with her finger. “It isn’t so bad. Makes you look pale, though.”

He followed her, though lagging far behind, into the kitchen and watched as she moved things around. Their house had been her house first—the house where she grew up. It had been in her family for three generations, a tall thin place of brown brick and scalloped windows, keeping its shape even as it updated its plumbing, exchanged gas lighting for electricity, and tapped into the underground telephone and cable lines running like veins down the street. In other words, her roots ran deeper than his. He’d only been born in Milwaukee, whereas she had lived here all her life.

Still hovering by the doorway, he mentally paced over the idea of telling her the truth. If he told her, there was a strong chance that he… well, that he would have to start planning that escape after all, only out of necessity.

“I can feel you staring,” she said without looking up from the counter. “Is there something you wanted?” She was cutting something with a knife, each slice a whisper and a thud against the board.

“I, uh… I got fired today.”

That got her attention. “Oh.”

“I took too many days off.”

“Are you sure it was just that?”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated, chewing her lip. “Are you sure it isn’t because of what happened with Jake?”

“I don’t think they care. They just want somebody more reliable than me.”

With a sigh, she went back to cutting. “Well, this isn’t the first time you’ve been out of work.”

He could hear the disappointment in her voice. She was worried, too. Librarian pay really wasn’t that good. Especially not if you had two kids.

_I won’t tell her about the other thing now. Not next month, either. Maybe not next year. Maybe not ever. Ignorance is bliss. No one needs to know but me…_

But Jake knew. And Jake was constantly being interviewed, interrogated, poked and prodded. What was stopping him from telling?

 _It’s not relevant, you idiot,_ Jeff winced at the not-quite-a-voice in his head. _It would be useless to them. There’s no point. But there is a point in_ you _telling the truth. Because I know you can’t keep it in for much longer. It’s only a matter of time before you blow it._

What a dirty, disgusting secret it was. He felt it bubbling up like bile, threatening to burst out of him all at once. He darted out of the kitchen, one hand clutching the other at the wrist, trembling.

_Haven’t I always been right, Jeff?_


End file.
